sitting outside: conviviality, self‐care and the design of benches in...

Sitting outside: conviviality, selfcare and the design of benches in urban public space

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Rishbeth, Clare and Rogaly, Ben (2018) Sitting outside: conviviality, self-care and the design of benches in urban public space. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 43 (2). pp. 284-298. ISSN 0020-2754

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Sitting outside: conviviality, self-care and thedesign of benches in urban public space

Clare Rishbeth1 and Ben Rogaly2

The urban bench has been romanticised as a location of intimacy and benign social serendipity, and problematisedwith regard to perceptions of unwelcome loitering. In this paper we explore embodied practices of sitting onbenches within an urban context characterised by corporate-led regeneration and impacted by austerity urbanism,imperial history and ongoing racisms. Our schizocartographic methodology enables us to attend to thedifferentiated and shifting subjectivities and temporalities of bench users, and to emerging counter histories ofspace. The research is based on the case study of a central square in Woolwich, south-east London. This involvedan eclectic combination of methods, including film-making, ethnography and interviews, and a cross-sectoral teamof activists, academics and an artist. The paper starts by conceptualising public space with respect to livedexperiences of marginalisation, arguing that architectural design is intrinsic to understanding micro-geographies ofconviviality and care. The case study material is used first to provide a visual sketch of sitting and watching othersin the square and then to address conviviality and the value of visibility and relative proximity in framing a mostlyun-panicked multiculture. Third, we discuss agentic, yet critically aware, acts of self-care. Finally, our focus shiftsto the design of the benches and the ‘touching experiences’ of bodies sat in various ways, impacted by structuralinequalities, yet differentiated by the particularities of individual or collective priorities. In conclusion we arguethat attending to the precision of sitting on a bench can illuminate multiple temporalities of urban change inrelation to both individual subjectivities and hegemonic structures. Further, the counter histories that emerge caninform policy and practice for inclusive urban design.

Key words public space; architecture; conviviality; care; regeneration; London

1Department of Landscape, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TNEmail: [email protected] of Geography, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9SJ

Revised manuscript received 12 June 2017

Introduction

What does sitting outside mean for people experienc-ing marginalisation and exclusion in the city? In whatways is this meaning changed by corporate-led regen-eration of urban public spaces, and shaped by urbandesign? This paper explores these questions, keepingat its heart the urban bench. Benches have beenromanticised as sites of benign encounter and con-templation (Wylie 2009), while also problematised asprops for ‘loitering’ within broader governmentalagendas of surveillance, overt discriminatory regula-tion, privatisation and sanitisation (Crawford andLister 2007; Minton 2009). As we will argue, theseideas are not necessarily contradictory: benches mayhave various contrasting meanings and uses simulta-neously, and these will change throughout the day andnight as well as over longer periods of time. Amultiscalar, spatiotemporal approach is thus crucial inorder to understand benches and sitting outside moregenerally within and against ongoing processes of

economic, cultural and political change in and beyondthe city (McFarlane 2016, 230; Peck et al. 2013).

The paper uses the case study of a specific Londonsite – Gordon Square, Woolwich – to add to literaturethat takes seriously ordinary, grounded experiences ofcorporate-led regeneration and gentrification (e.g.Paton 2014). It draws on an innovative, eclectic set ofresearch methods designed through collaborationbetween academics, a local anti-hate crime organisa-tion and a documentary filmmaker. The resultingmulti-disciplinary, situated, close-up view enables usto provide new insights on how people choose where tosit (and who with); the ergonomics of legs, seat-backsand bags; the process of watching; and the subjectiveexperiences of bench users in relation to weather,noise, smells and other people.

The research took place in the context of regener-ation that appears to be in step with wider processes ofsocial cleansing in London (Watt and Minton 2016).Yet, paradoxically, as we shall see, in the specific time-frame of our study, increased experiences of respite

The information, practices and views in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinion ofthe Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). ISSN 0020-2754 Citation: 2017 doi: 10.1111/tran.12212

© 2017 The Authors. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf ofRoyal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers).

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and connectivity were reported by existing residents,particularly those marginalised by unemployment, ill-health, loneliness, over-crowded housing and/orracisms, and affected by the national government’sausterity policies that cut public services and benefits.Time and temporality are crucial to understanding thisapparent contradiction. Money from corporate devel-opment in Woolwich largely financed the recentredesign of the case study site. We suggest that whilecritical urban studies have correctly revealed thedestructive and unjust effects of neoliberal urbanism(Peck et al. 2013) especially as austerity policies inten-sified (Peck 2012), possible temporary advantages ofcertain aspects of urban regeneration to existingresidents have been missed (McGuirk et al. 2016),exemplifying a disjuncture between overarching,rhetorical metanarratives and more grounded experi-ences of change (Linebaugh 2010).

Our paper contributes further by connecting aca-demic debates on the ‘publicness’ of public space withthose relating to geographies of care (Atkinson et al.2011; Lawson 2007) and urban conviviality (Gilroy2004; Wise and Noble 2016). Recent work on thegeographies of care has sought to bridge the dividebetween an outward-looking care for the wider worldbeyond the self, and geographical analysis of experi-ences of care and caring (Lawson 2007). While somehave emphasised the historical provision of ‘places tosit’ in urban green space as intended to ‘produce a“kind of regulated, civilised, subjectivity”’ (Brown 2013,17, citing Osborne and Rose 1999, 744), our multiscalarschizocartography (see Methodology) explores theinteraction between design of public space and thesubjectivities of people who use it. The latter connectsin particular to discussions of self-care (Atkinson 2011;Ball and Olmedo 2013). Self-care forms part ofTronto’s broad definition of care as

a species activity that includes everything that we do tomaintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can livein it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, ourselves, and our environment, all of which we seek tointerweave in a complex, life-sustaining web. (Tronto 1998,15; see also Williams 2017)

While we concur with what Massey and Thrift argue isan ‘ambition’ in geography ‘to move away from spacesviewed as if from on high right into the action andespecially into the press of embodiment’ (2003, 288),our approach to the relation between self-care andspace is not to ‘[privilege] a logic of individualautonomy and choice’ (Atkinson et al. 2011, 564). Wewould rather invoke Ahmed’s notion (following AudreLorde) that ‘caring for oneself can be an act of politicalwarfare’ (2014) or at least to view self-care as a form ofagency that ‘is less than resistance but not unaware oruncritical of the social relations of hegemony’

(Atkinson 2011, 625, building on Katz 2004). For thosewho linger, sitting outside on a bench may be theoutcome of marginalisation, an agentic choice for self-care or a mixture of both.

For people experiencing mental ill-health, Duff’sresearch on recovery lists ‘spaces of solitude’ as one ofthe potential recovery-enhancing aspects of outsidespaces, but also notes that ‘select sites of sociality andsocial engagement sustained particular atmospheres ofrecovery’ (2016, 66–7; emphasis added; see also Philo2005, 589). We argue in the paper that urban convivi-ality can be part of such productive sociability, inparticular when conceived of in the Spanish sense of‘conviviencia’, which invokes the interactions of ‘prac-tice, effort, negotiation and achievement’ (Wise andNoble 2016, 425; see also Gilroy 2004). After all, one ofthe ‘paradoxes of convivial coexistence’ is that it is

always enmeshed in, mediated by and shadowed by colonialhistories, enduring racisms, variegated and uneven belong-ings and the entitlements, and moral panics of the day.(Wise and Noble 2016, 430; see also Back 1996)

Conviviality is not necessarily inclusive, it can beotherwise – ‘a shared hatred of the latest newcomers’(Back and Sinha 2016, 530). However, for the purposesof this paper, we view conviviality, although within thecontext of structural oppressions (Nayak 2017, 291), as‘at ease with difference’ (Wise and Velayutham 2014,407). The counter history to racisms is in part, weargue, extending Gilroy’s (2004, 167) argument, one inwhich urban multiculture, as experienced throughsitting outside, can bring respite, even hope.

Our intervention on benches as sites of convivialityrelates to our third major theme: design. Here we buildon Wise and Noble’s more general insight that

spaces and times of convivial relations rest as much onmaterial environs as they do on interpersonal and socialrelations. The physical organisation of social space, and theways humans make use of this space, are fundamental to thelogic of connection or discrimination. (2016, 427, emphasisadded; see also Bowlby 2011, 613)

Conviviality thus needs to be understood with regard tothe physical design of urban public space – materialityand form, social functions and atmosphere (Koch andLatham 2011). The sensory assemblages of urbanplaces are convened in part through the ‘materialaffordances of the built environment’ (Degen and Rose2012, 3278), and shape qualities of both sociability andsolitude. Design of urban public space (and in somecases specifically the design of benches) can also haveintent to repel, as can be traced in ongoing debatesregarding hostile architecture and just cities (Low andIveson 2016; Petty 2016).

This paper starts with a contextualising of thehistories and structures of inequality that have shaped

2 Clare Rishbeth and Ben Rogaly

ISSN 0020-2754 Citation: 2017 doi: 10.1111/tran.12212© 2017 The Authors. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf ofRoyal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers).

contemporary Woolwich. This is followed by an over-view of the research methodology. The discussion ofthe findings is then presented in four sections. The firstof these connects the paper’s three themes of convivi-ality, self-care and design through a series of observa-tions on square users’ acts of watching. Conviviality andself-care are each then explored separately before thefourth empirical section, which addresses the processesbefore, behind and around each individual experience:the priorities and decisions made in the design of urbanpublic space that have hitherto been underexplored inthe geographical literature.

Context

Thirty minutes east by light railway from the ‘City’,London’s financial services centre, Woolwich is locatedon the south bank of the Thames estuary. Woolwichwas a key node in London’s imperial expansion andtrade (Back 1996, 14), a place from which arms wereshipped for British colonial conquest and domination.Rapid de-industrialisation from the mid-20th centuryonwards, and the ceasing of arms manufacture atWoolwich’s Royal Arsenal in 1967, were integral to agradual decline in population in this part of London, aswell as increased deprivation. However, Woolwich’spopulation grew from 20001 due to better transportlinks to London, an increased availability of relativelylow-cost housing and international migration. Thelatter is also reflected in ethnic diversification, withjust 37 per cent of census respondents identifying aswhite British in 2011 (compared to 45% for London, asa whole), and significant growth in the number ofpeople with Ghanaian, Nigerian, Nepali or easternEuropean heritage (Bates 2017, 58).

Racisms and hate crime have historic precedent inWoolwich. Moreover, reporting and commentary onthe horrific killing of Private Lee Rigby, which tookplace in Woolwich in May 2013, contributed to anational anti-Muslim discourse, which has been asso-ciated with racist attacks in many parts of the country.Economic inequality is an equally important part of thecurrent conjuncture. Most of Woolwich, includingresidential areas adjacent to Gordon Square, remainedin the top quintile (most deprived) according toEngland’s Indices of Deprivation in 2015.

A major new investment in transport infrastructure –the Crossrail station due to open in 2018 – will linkWoolwich to central London at faster speeds than ever.Private developers are renovating former warehousesto provide apartments intended to attract high-earningyoung adults. Their billboard images convey youthful-ness, whiteness, a consumer orientation, speed, social-ity and heteronormativity. At the same time theseprivate corporate developments depend on connectionswith – affordances given by – the local state at multiple

scales. Crucially for our case study, £6.6 million wasapproved by the Royal Borough of Greenwich andTransport for London in a partnership with privatedevelopers to ‘redesign’ both Gordon Square (Fig-ure 1) and adjacent Beresford Square, commissioningGustafson Porter, a globally renowned landscapearchitectural practice. The squares were re-opened in2011.

Before it was made into a public space in 1928,Woolwich’s Gordon Square (official name GeneralGordon Square) had been an open-topped railwaycutting known as the ‘smoke hole’ that served Wool-wich Arsenal Station (Gilbert 2012, 47). If memorial-isation is part of the shaping of the urban present(Wilson and Darling 2016, 14), then naming the squareafter Gordon, who had been born in Woolwich andlater became Governor-General of Sudan, emphasisedthe area’s link to British imperialism. Another echo of amilitary history is the clustering of Nepali migrants inWoolwich, (over 5000 Nepali-born residents registeredin the 2011 census), ex-Gurkhas and their wives/widowswho were granted the right to settle in the UK in 2009.In 2015 large groups of these residents, mostly olderpeople on low incomes, spent extended periods of timein Gordon Square, especially over the summer months.

We engage with the uneven temporalities at work inthese processes through attending to a central irony:Gordon Square was rebuilt as a part of the RoyalBorough’s ‘ongoing programme of major renovation’ inWoolwich town centre. Yet, while the broader housingcrisis is likely to force increasing numbers out of thearea in the future, this paper explores how the‘improved’ square and its benches are currently expe-rienced by their users, including low-income residentsof Woolwich and visitors from neighbouring areas.

Methodology

The research on which this paper is based can be seenas a kind of schizocartography in process (Richardson2015). Schizocartography builds on Richardson’s read-ing of psychogeography literature and of Guattari’sschizoanalysis, which, Richardson summarises,

challenges dominant powers and offers a process forremodelling their structure, not only to suit heterogeneousvoices but also to reflect a history that may be counter to thedominant one. (2015, 188–9)

This framing resonates with Stuart Hall’s analytical useof conjuncture (Hall 2011), which similarly conceives ofdominant structures as multidimensional and interact-ing. As with Hall’s intellectual project, schizocartogra-phy refuses an artificial separation between ‘objective’and ‘subjective’, considering instead the relationbetween them (Hall 2017, 170). Schizocartography isa methodology for enabling the articulation of counter-

Sitting outside 3

ISSN 0020-2754 Citation: 2017 doi: 10.1111/tran.12212© 2017 The Authors. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of

Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers).

histories of space. It does not necessarily involve ad�erive – Debord’s concept for a psychogeographicalwalk, a kind of research in motion. Schizocartographydoes, however, entail ‘the presence of the body inspace, subjective reactions to place, or a search forsomething that may reveal “the other” of a place’.Crucially it ‘reclaim[s] the subjectivity of individuals’ in‘spaces that have been co-opted by various capitalistoriented operations’ and recognises that ‘the individ-ual’s response to a space will not necessarily be thesame at a different moment in time or upon anothervisit’ (Richardson 2015, 182, 186, 188–9). Engagementwith individual subjectivities and with individual bodiesin space and the sociality between them was enhancedby the central involvement of a film-maker in theresearch team and the presence of a video camera forpart of the fieldwork. Together, these enabled us toengage with the sensuous elements of the square asexperienced by bench-users and others, and to connectthe contemporary importance of visual culture with the

idea of research as performance (Latham 2003, 2003;Rose 2014, 26).

The project’s 18-minute long documentary film,Alone together: the social life of benches (Johnson2015a), provides urban portraiture of the square, anassemblage of reflections from diverse bench-users,highlighting

themes such as the psychological feeling of being in a space,the rhythm and flow of visitors to a place, the importance ofdesign for everyday street furniture and access to communaloutdoor space’ (Johnson 2015b, np)

The paper thus attends to multiple temporalitiesthrough setting the often fleeting temporariness ofindividual experience (Eldridge 2010; Lim 2010; Wilsonand Darling 2016) alongside and juxtaposed withlonger historical trends and processes.

The research was collaborative, and co-produced,involving academics (from Geography and LandscapeArchitecture), third-sector colleagues (GreenwichInclusion Project, The Young Foundation) and thedocumentary filmmaker, Esther Johnson. Woolwichwas one of two London locations, the other a park inSutton. Samprada Mukhia, a Nepali-speaking femalefieldworker (with a background in Law) worked withJasber Singh from Greenwich Inclusion Project(GRIP), a small activist organisation working againsthate crime in the Borough, to undertake ethnographicfieldwork in Gordon Square primarily during daylighthours over a period of five months in spring andsummer 2015. The multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoralnature of this work was crucial, drawing differently onthe expertise within the team as a whole, mutuallydeveloping skills in qualitative interviewing, in inter-preting local politics and urban change, in analysing thebuilt environment, and in noticing sensory and

Figure 1 Gordon Square diagram of benches and imageSource: Clare Rishbeth

Figure 2 The act of sittingSource: Esther Johnson



temporal dynamics. These shaped the aims, methodsand diverse outputs of the project, generating a rangeof material data: researcher fieldnotes, photographsand on-site drawings (plans and sections), ad-hocconversations and formally recorded interviews, filmrushes and sound files. The majority of ethnographicfieldwork, including 18 days of just being in the square,was undertaken by Mukhia, supported and supple-mented by Singh and the authors. Esther Johnsonmade three day-long visits to interview and photographfilm participants, prior to the intensive engagementwith the square over two days of filming dawn to night-time.

Engagement with people using the square took arange of forms. Eighteen participants were interviewed,six of them on camera in the square. Each of the lattercontributed to varying degrees through mid-editreviews and feedback at private screenings of the film.Over four months there were a range of on-siteinformal conversations and interactions with othersquare users, more than 30 of these being specificallyrecorded in researcher fieldnotes, as well as a series ofsix group discussions with older Nepali heritageresidents as part of a regular language class at theGRIP premises.

Expert insights into intention and iteration in designand management practice were gained through inter-views with two ‘town wardens’, their manager and thelandscape architect of the square. These data wereanalysed to inform understandings, connections andimplications, shaping a rich production of knowledge.This was tested and refined through five extendedcollaborative workshops, bridging traditional distinc-tions between academic research and practice, andbetween social science and the arts.

The next section discusses the dynamics of ‘watch-ing’, prefiguring and connecting the three subsequentsections on conviviality, self-care and design.

Sitting and watching

When sitting on any of the outer edges of GordonSquare your view takes in a broad panorama. ‘A niceviewpoint’, states Mel,2 who sits here for long after-noons on sunny days, ‘like a theatre’. The square isdesigned for flow, accommodating the network of criss-crossings that connect shops, buses, council houses, theDocklands Light Railway station and all the manydirections in which people might move. But it is alsodesigned for sitting and watching. The three-metredrop allows clear sightlines to the water feature(children playing) and the large public television screen(Novak Djokovic playing). Unexpectedly, addressingthe dynamics of the ‘big telly’ within the square is auseful means of exploring how conviviality and self-careare interrelated.

The landscape architects were not briefed on theinclusion of the large screen, which was shoehorned intothe nearly completed design on account of the upcomingOlympics. Within urban design discourse, from Whyte(1980) to Gehl (2010), there is a strong emphasis givento the delights of sitting outside combined with ‘peoplewatching’. Against this, the increasing encroachmentinto public spaces of large, constantly broadcastingtelevision screens can be framed as both a reflection andan indictment of contemporary times and new genera-tions: forever plugged in, short attention spans, unableto entertain themselves, a low common denominator.But by careful listening to participants’ accounts, wefound an alternative practice of collective–privateinteractions of television watching, one which oftenenabled conviviality and reduced isolation (Widholm2016). Maurice is a middle-aged UK-born man ofJamaican parentage, well educated but who now ‘knowswhat it’s like not to have a dicky-bird’,3 and lives insheltered accommodation.

Yesterday I was sitting over there and we were watching thetennis and a chap sat down beside me and he said somethingand I said something and he said something and I saidsomething and we started to talk and then he told me hisname and I told him mine and that was that.

Sitting on a bench and telly watching is fundamentallydifferent from doing the same thing from your sofa athome.

Aggie and her adult daughter Lorna bring theirgarden chairs, position them under a tree in good viewof the screen and watch whatever is on. The visuals areimportant for Lorna, who is profoundly deaf. Theysometimes make a special trip for sports events,recalling with great enthusiasm their memories ofMurray winning at Wimbledon: ‘the atmosphere herewas fantastic . . . it was actually better than being atWimbledon . . . because you could see everything’(Aggie). Maurice and many others who were inter-viewed stated quite simply that the ‘big screen’ makes adifference; that they would visit the square if it wasn’tthere, but not so frequently, and they wouldn’t stay solong. The telly-watching both adds to the interest oftheir time in the square, and also tacitly legitimisestheir long-stay presence, not loitering but lingering. It isthere to be watched.

The big telly provides a gateway to ‘multipleelsewheres’ (Gidley 2013), but this is not at odds withan engaged presence in the square.

Fieldnote [Esther, interview via translator, July]: Vikashlikes to go to South London College on a Tuesday to pick upa copy of the free Nepalese newspaper. He likes to read thisand sit in a group and watch the big screen on Tuesdays –this is a time that makes him feel, ‘at peace’. He likes to seepeople from all over the world, he finds watching thediversity of people entertaining.

Sitting outside 5



In this weekly ritual, Vikash describes engaging withtwo forms of media, his own group of friends and thewider flow and mix of people around him; and thecombination of foci and activities engenders a feelingof ‘peace’ – a personal, reflective state. Sitting outside,a field of vision is provisional, shifting. Bench-spaceallows for both connection and momentary solitude.

Conviviality and perceptions of difference

Maurice comes alone to the square and sits on one ofthe benches, as he does most days. He wouldn’t say thathe comes to this place for companionship, but he getsdrawn into conversations. ‘It’s funny, because when yousit here, people come up to you and talk to you,complete strangers. Some time I tell them though[under breath] “fuck off”‘, but he also recounts amiableinteractions, such as when watching a recording ofUsain Bolt tear round the 2012 Olympic track on thebig telly. ‘A girl sat next to me and asked if me if I wasJamaican, and said how she wished she was alsoJamaican’.

For those meeting friends in the square, it is a venuefor everyday conversations. Overheard conversationsranged from the relative merits of Turkish and Qatarairlines, growing plants from seed and children’sbirthday celebrations. ‘And we come here hanging withfriends, chill out and that’s it really, init, that’s it really’(Joe, 18 years old).

Home environments, for reasons of size, privacy orflexibility, do not accommodate these groupings; thegenerosity of the bench space allows appropriation ofpublic space for sort-of private conversations. Thesecan enable bridging across difference. Mel, a self-identified ‘Woolwich Albanian’ in her twenties, whooften spends afternoons in the square with her twowell-groomed dogs, recounted how an instinctivefriendliness towards these dogs provided her with ‘astarting point’ and she now feels that within this placeshe ‘has made a lot of friends’.

Difference in Woolwich is interpreted through‘multiplicities, potentials and practices’ of social iden-tities (Wilson and Darling 2016, 1): intersections ofidentity; ethnicity overlayed with length of residence,class and occupations. In the ebb and flow of incidentalinteractions, convivial behaviours can and do bridgethese, reflecting both a ‘commonplace diversity’ (Wes-sendorf 2013) and an everyday pragmatism of what itmeans to live in this area.

Fieldnotes [Ben, July]: While we sat there we witnessed aboy (about fourteen) walking with friends, all black boys inschool uniform. He swore as he passed an older white man,in his 60s, who was sitting with other white men of a similarage, all drinking beer from 99p cans. The man shouted afterthe boy. A couple of minutes later the boys came back andthe boy who had shouted apologised and shook hands with

the man. The man accepted the apology, gently tugging theboy’s tie and saying ‘you can’t wear a posh school uniformlike this and go around doing things like that’.

The visibility of difference is undeniable, but there aretimes when it becomes more explicit, a known andknowing ‘throwntogetherness’ (Massey 2005). Mauriceremembered laughing when he saw the array of flagsbrought to the square by people watching the footballWorld Cup; ‘you thought ahh, I didn’t know there wereUruguayans in Woolwich’. These kinds of culturalevents are talked about by many as bringing peopletogether. But ethnic difference was mostly unremarkedon (while acknowledging the limitations of our oneseason timeframe in building trust for more difficultconversations). Casual descriptions of nationality andcolour of skin are used to describe situations and asshorthand for group identities. The ‘Nepali elders’ (aterm used by Greenwich Inclusion Project) have anunusually distinct visual identification due to theirnumbers, language and clothing. They commonly,though not exclusively, sit in large fluid groupings onthe back edge benches of the square. ‘Nepalese Isle’Maurice calls it, not unkindly.

It is another ‘large group’ of bench-users who mostclearly exemplify these intersections, and in particular‘how class is lived as a complex structure of feeling withnetworks of interaction as well as structural dimen-sions’ (Back 2015, 833). They are well known locally; awhite multi-generational family group, a mix of parents,grandparents and children who spend long periods oftime in the square on a daily basis. Other users of thesquare reported feeling uneasy around this group,referring to drinking of alcohol, smoking and leaving ofrubbish, and recounted some incidental conflicts of amore sustained nature in the case of the male skate-boarders. However, this family group, in common withmany others, uses Gordon Square as a location foreveryday care and sociability, in particular as a placewhere young children can be cared for while the adultschat. The grandmother, Margaret, in her fifties, alsosees the value of the square as a place of ‘generalmixing’ and talks about striking up conversations withpeople she doesn’t know.

Mix with all sorts of people. Like, you get to know differentthings, it could be something you already know that theysaid, or you could think ‘well, that’s something new that Ihave learnt today’.

She notes how ‘the Gurkhas’ are also here on a dailybasis, and

some talk English, and if they don’t you’ve got someone whodoes, so you have a good conversation with them . . . You getto know lots of things around just by sitting here really.

There are occasional flashes of ‘trouble’ in GordonSquare, some of which are specifically racially



motivated, an unsurprising co-existence of racism andmulticulture (Back 1996). However, the thrust of thedata, observations and interviews from Gordon Squarestrongly indicate that the space of the public square hasthe potential to support a positive experience of ‘un-panicked multiculturalism’ (Noble 2009, 51), mostlythrough acts of informal conviviality. For some, thisallows conversations and learning. For others, it has asymbolic resonance:

This place is absolutely marvellous, I love the multiculturalaspect of it because here it really gives you hope for thefuture. Here is a start for ending all world wars. I’m notsaying it is going to happen tomorrow, or even in ourgeneration, but you’ve got to start somewhere haven’t you?(Aggie)

This public presence and visibility of sitting outside hasa fundamentally different impact (on both the groupitself and the other users of the square) to sitting in aclosed-off indoor location. This is explored in thefollowing section as a dimension of self-care.

A site for self-care

Based on a review of geographical studies, Schwanenand Wang found that ‘access to green space . . . usuallyhas a positive effect on well being and mental health . . .especially when woodlands and parks are visited at leastonce per week’ (2014, 836). These authors rightlyattend to time and temporalities, acknowledging, forexample, that wellbeing effects may be short induration or tied to specific time periods (Crang 2001;Hudson 2015). However, Schwanen and Wang do notexplore differences in how the same physical space maybe subjectively experienced, the schizocartographies ofnature connectedness (Capaldi et al. 2014; Richardson2015). While for some Gordon Square is perceived as abusy town centre square with a few trees in it, for othersit can be, at certain times and in particular seasons, asite of peaceful contemplation and getting away from itall. Many refer to it as ‘a park’.

Being in the square with unknown others, watchingthem and noting the detail of their movement, theirlunch, the interaction with their children, the way theysmoke or laugh or snooze, this is the essence of what itmeans to sit on the benches in Gordon Square. Asignificant minority of visitors spend long periods oftime here, regularly up to four hours, and this longevityof engagement is relevant in understanding intersec-tions of solitude and sociability, the importance of awide and populated field of view, and even the role ofthe ‘big telly’. In the interviews, participants commonlyvolunteered understandings of the positive benefits ofbeing outdoors for their own mental wellbeing.

You don’t try and think about any problems or anything. Youtry and keep your mind occupied by looking around – you

might see somebody running, or playing, or maybe someother bits and pieces . . . and keep your mind clear. (Bobby)

The actions of sitting and watching and the entwine-ment of watching and thinking, combine for Bobby andothers into a calmer way of being.

This deliberate seeking out of space and time to besometimes alone but alongside others in the greenspace of the square, and the health effects that may beexperienced as a result, can be seen as acts of agency inspite of the context of austerity politics. Power andBartlett examined how people with learning disabilities‘self-build’ their own ‘safe havens’. ‘Self-building prac-tices are taken to mean the progressive forms of“agency” deployed . . . to take control of one’s own life’(Power and Bartlett 2015, 4). The participants in theirstudy often made their safe havens in ‘prosaic, lessofficial public spaces in which individuals occupy andcome into contact with others’ (Power and Bartlett2015, 12; cf. Amin 2002). Temporality was importanthere too – rather than spaces being inherently inclu-sionary or exclusionary, participants evoked ‘momentsof inclusion’ (Power and Bartlett 2015, 12; emphasisadded). Addressing the urban public realm morebroadly, this may shape an interpretation of sittingoutside as an empowering appropriation, a placecharacterised both by caring and self-care (Bates et al.2017).

The framing of self-building safe havens is apt forinterpreting the actions and values of Aggie and Lorna,the mother and adult daughter who bring their gardenchairs to the square a few times each week and enjoyedseeing Murray win at Wimbledon. Unusually amongthe participants, they referred to having a garden athome, but this was described as a ‘lonely’ place to sit.The pair collaborate on creating what could be seen asa safe haven in the middle of Gordon Square for Lorna,who is profoundly deaf. Aggie discussed a range ofcontributing factors that she saw as having positivemental health effects: the relaxation of watching the bigtelly, the amount of ‘space’, the peaceful low-keyinteraction between people of ‘different cultures’, andthe opportunity for Lorna to undertake short indepen-dent visits to familiar shops. Aggie had come to knowpeople by sight and would exchange the occasionalsmile or wave. She felt this was a ‘blessing’ and relatedto how she felt the square could contribute to peacefulcoexistence in the world. This multi-scalar constructionof a safe haven resonates with Tronto’s definition ofcare as agentic, the ‘weaving’ of a ‘complex, life-sustaining web’ (1998, 15).

Mental health and physical health were oftendiscussed in combination and in contrast to an indoordomestic environment. Maurice also visited the squareregularly and alluded both to the positive effect on hisgeneral wellbeing and on a specific health issue. Being

Sitting outside 7



outside made him feel better, and walking to andbeyond the square made him fitter:

It’s boring sitting at home: you can only read so much, eat somuch, drink so much. And in the end you think is this allthere is? I come out basically to see people, people walkingabout, all walks of life and basically to get a bit of exercise. . .

Bobby, like Maurice, a middle-aged man and frequentvisitor to the square, made a direct connection betweenthe atmosphere in the square on the one hand and hismental and physical health on the other.

Being home by myself all day is very depressing . . . I’d rathercome out here, spend a couple of hours. That will improvemy health condition and makes me feel more happy. I wouldnot go home depending on sleeping tablets to sleep in thenight. When my body is more relaxed, I can sleep morecomfortable.

While Power and Bartlett’s study addressed self-building as an individual (or supported) action, wesuggest that the affordances and characteristics ofGordon Square may also be conceived as a collectivesafe-haven for the Nepali elders, ‘built’ through theirown preferences for outdoor places and sociablenetworks. As Atkinson argues, some writers on self-care ‘underplay the role of others . . . [and] an attentivecare that may be associative rather than reflexive’(2011, 625).

There’s a lot in the heart when I am home alone. I keepthinking about where to go and I feel restless. When I amoutside with my friends, talking and laughing, I forget abouteverything else and feel at peace. (Sarita)

Again this connects conviviality and self-care. ThoughSarita and Prithvi chatted about the sadness of notbeing able to speak English to make friends, they alsorecognise the value of other forms of connection andthe importance of small acts of care for others:

On a day such as this, while roaming around this park, if yousee a thousand faces then it is good for you. My ancestorsused to say that. It might be so. And if you meet a personwho does not look good on the street but you exchange a fewwords and smile, it feels very good. (Sarita)

The ‘big telly’ can be significant in this collectiveprocess too. Our fieldwork period included the event ofthe earthquake in Nepal in April 2015. Papastergiadiset al. (2013, 338) discuss large urban screens as pivotpoints ‘at which private and public spheres interact andfrom which the cosmopolitan vision unfolds’, and thismay be specifically true with regard to news broadcasts.For a week or so, scenes of devastation were a rollingbackground for the everyday activities of GordonSquare, and a source of transnational emotionalconnection and information for the Nepali communityin Woolwich. Undoubtedly, the role of Gordon Squareas a gathering point for the older Nepalis, and as aplace in which they are clearly visible as local residents,

was strengthened during this time by the globalconnections visibly articulated by the news channelson the screen. Gordon Square became a site of caringwithin the Nepali community, but their presence herealso engaged a more structural connection of supportfrom the broader population of Woolwich, a location ofempathy that led to fundraising activities and setting upof collection points. It seems reasonable to suggest thatthese activities were made more likely due to the visibleshared experiences and connective resources of Gor-don Square. In discussing the functionality andresources of the square, we now consider more closelythe role of the design of the square and its benches.

‘Touching experiences’ of bench design

In the previous three sections we focused on theexperiential qualities of everyday appropriations ofpublic space – the gradients of solitude and sociabil-ity, the paired dynamics of conviviality and racism,and the ways in which individuals find temporaryrespite and restoration within the busyness. In thisfinal empirical section, we take a turn towardsmateriality. The multi-disciplinary methodologicalapproach of this research allows an informed critiqueof the design of benches.

‘Look how long my legs are yeah? For me to sit hereI’m practically at a right angle, but up here just nice’(Joe). Joe and Mohsin sit close together, trainer totrainer, on the broad back wall of the granite benchthat runs along the eastern edge of Gordon Square.Over the hours they spend there each day they arejoined in fluid clusters of friends and acquaintances,gathering round, standing, smoking, drinking, phonechecking. The design of the back of the bench isimportant, a generous 30 cm wide sitting space, whichalso acts as retaining wall for a large planter of mixedshrubs. A range of people, not only young men, sit ‘up’on these back edge benches. It provides a good vantagepoint and there are other benefits: feet are out of theway of passers-by and it is easier to chat with peoplestanding nearby.

The long granite benches in Gordon Square wereintentionally designed by Gustafson Porter to beintegral to the infrastructure of the square, accommo-dating the level change of the terraces, unable to betaken out in response to future management cuts orcomplaints. The detailing is thoughtful – backs angledat 9°, generous depth, intermittent armrests, kick backs(underhangs which allow feet to recess behind theknees) – all contribute both to accessibility and thecomfort of people sitting here for hours at a time. ‘I gotto say, these seats are good, we cannot do any betterthan this . . . it’s a very solid seat’ (Bobby).

Before sitting, individuals make micro-observationsto inform the decision of where to sit, weighing up



prospect, shelter and proximity to favourable or unde-sirable neighbours.

Fieldnotes [Esther, June]: Bobby had chosen a bench on theedge of the square, opposite and with a clear view of the BigScreen . . . on the right hand side next to an armrest.

Fieldnotes [Esther, interview with interpretation by Sam-prada, July]: When choosing a place to sit down he [Vikash]assesses who is sitting where first before choosing where tosit himself. He tries to sit away from drunk people in thesquare, wherever they are not around, he will go and sit. Hedislikes the drinking and noise that these groups make.

So I usually find myself, anyway, sitting near the TV to watchthe tennis. I don’t like smoking, so the reason I’m sittinghere is that I was sitting and a lady came and startedsmoking so I moved along and another bloke came andstarted to smoke so I thought let me move over therebecause I don’t like smoking, I have to walk away. I don’tlike the smell. (Maurice)

Proximity to others is a necessity of urban living (Amin2012; Sandercock 2003; Wilson and Darling 2016); it iskeenly felt and (mostly) valued in Gordon Square. Butpersonal space is also relevant; ‘[A]n increased aware-ness of one’s body in space and in relation to others isinevitable’ (Wilson 2011, 638, on sitting on buses; seealso Bissell 2007), so the size of the square and therelatively high number of places to sit is significant.There are options to sit further away from groups orpeople felt to be intimidating or unpleasant. Indiscussing urban smoking, Tan describes the ‘socio-spatial stratifications of odorous bodies’ (2013, 55),resulting in dynamic micro-geographies of negotiation.Prospect refuge theory of landscape preference (Apple-ton 1975) highlights the importance of ‘edge condi-tions’ that allow a view, but also security. In a denseurban context such as Gordon Square, this may be lessrelated to physical protection and more to a socio-sensory response which enables avoidance from irrita-tion triggers such as smoke, loud conversations, swear-ing or drinking. The visual openness of the squareenables this process to largely be conducted discretely;an ethos of civility informs good manners. It is better toseem to randomly choose to sit at a distance than findyourself needing to shift away.

The details of architectural design affect social andphysical comfort or discomfort, echoing Pallasmaa’splacement of bodies in the city.

[E]very touching experience of architecture is multi-sensory:qualities of space, matter and scale are measured equally bythe eye, ear, nose, skin, tongue, skeleton and muscle. (2005,41; cited by Degen 2014, 98)

For the users of the Gordon Square benches, thecontact of skin and bench was a regular point ofdiscussion. Margaret is a daily user of the square‘They’re hard and painful when you sit on them for a

while, you get a hard bum [laughs]’. The need for shadewas a common point even during the mild summerweather of 2015, and highlights the importance ofmicroclimate in shaping the pleasures of sitting outside.

The benches are made of granite, a material chosenfor durability and ease of maintenance. Mauricerecounted

When they were doing it I had a few arguments with theblokes here . . . because in Peckham when they did thesquare at the same time they put wooden backs . . . I wouldhave thought they’d put wooden backs here [too] but theblokes said, ‘this is Woolwich mate, you don’t wanna putwood down in Woolwich, people come and nick it’.

Though this implies a stigma relating to the need forrobust materials, the choice of granite has differentconnotations to cheap vandal-proof street furniture inmetal or recycled plastic, and reflects contemporarysleekness in aspirational urban design, the aestheticsof gentrification. However, this doesn’t negate thecoldness of touch. ‘Cold bums’ was an English phraselearnt by a group of Nepali elders during the processof this research. Thermal comfort is noticed by manypeople sitting on benches, but is especially importantto those who sit outside for longer periods of timeand on less than sunny days. A regular practice ofsome of the Nepali women was to either bringcushions from home, or, more commonly, to sourcesome food packaging or newspaper from the marketstalls and use this as a protection from the chill. Theaction of sitting is one that unifies site users, but alsodifferentiates their experience according to the par-ticularities of their own bodies, preferences andpriorities (Degen 2014). Limitations and discomfortsin the design resolution may be noticed by all squareusers, but the attention paid by our schizocarto-graphic approach to differentiated embodied subjec-tivities showed these were more important to ‘longerstay’ bench sitters, often those marginalised from awider choice of collective environments of work orleisure.

Benches clearly do not exist in isolation. GordonSquare is council owned, properly ‘public space’, and istypical of many centrally-located public spaces, with anexpensive coordinated system including CCTV surveil-lance, police patrols, daily cleaning and the nearconstant presence of town wardens who patrol thesquare from early morning until six in the evening.‘Responsible drinking’ is allowed, littering carries a fineand skateboarding is forbidden but tacitly accommo-dated around the edges. Since the redevelopment (withassociated higher levels of management and surveil-lance) it is highly likely that some activities and people,particularly those engaged in drug use, have beendisplaced to lower profile outdoor locations (Bates2017, 67; and reflecting Minton 2009).

Sitting outside 9



However, many who were in the position tocompare the current site with the previous squaredesign said that they now felt more able to spend timehere. The Alone together film gives witness to themundane inclusivity of presence in the square. Womenand elderly people on their own use the square, atleast during daytime hours, a common litmus test fora perception of safety (Project for Public Spaces nd).A broad range of people can and do hang out here:men and women who are alcohol dependent, whohave mental health issues, who in some cases wouldnot manage or want to conform to the codes ofbehaviour required of indoor public resources such aslibraries. Attending to distinctions between outdoorand indoor public spaces is relevant. Thoughresources such as libraries are commonly framed askey sites of inclusion (Fincher and Iveson 2008), ourfindings imply that for some, patterns and preferencesof socialising exemplified by the use of GordonSquare are better supported by the flexibility andopenness of outdoor locations.

A focus on benches allows the design of the squareto be addressed through haptic relationships, corporealunderstandings that frame the ‘right to pause’. In ourconclusion we revisit these connections; how a percep-tion of safety and an experience of comfort andconviviality can ease negotiation across difference(Wilson and Darling 2016, 3–4).

Conclusion

Public squares in cities involve micro-climates of association[that] are never singular or fixed, but rather entail multipleconnections between past, present and future and arecontinuously reworked as different rhythms and temporal-ities converge in urban space. (Pickner 2016, 80, 82)

Through attending to and participating in ‘benchconversations’, this research has undertaken a embry-onic schizocartography of Gordon Square: a position-ing of bodies sitting in various ways, a validation of thesubjectivity of various moments, and a curating of aconversation between processes of landscape architec-ture and the daily lives of the square’s users. The co-produced nature of the research aided critique andidentification of multi-scalar relationships; dynamics ofgentrification encompassing top-down corporate-ledregeneration and the individual micro-spaces of sitting,smoking and chatting on granite benches.

The choice to sit on a bench for longer periods canbe circumscribed by outcomes of marginalisation – howhours are passed (time rich, time poor) and theaffordances or limitations of a home environment ascommonly shaped by income and health. But ourfieldwork suggests a more complex dynamic that evokesdimensions of care, self-care and the relevance of beingpresent in the messy interactions afforded by a busy

civic place. We extend Massey and Thrift’s framing of‘the press of embodiment’ as a means of approaching‘the relationship between self-care and space’ (2003,288), proposing that the nature of sitting outside in apublic space is both deeply personal, ‘touching experi-ences’ of a body seeking a place to pause, and a tacitclaiming of belonging within a collective context. Theact of caring for oneself becomes tangible through asequence of seat choices: sitting further away fromnoise or cigarettes, positioned alongside family orfriends, related to provisions of shade, back support orsightlines. Such mundane choices shape an act of‘occupation’, not necessarily one of resistance oroutrage, but conceivably an agentic act, although inthe context of structural inequalities, to find a momentof self-care, even a desire for being among others. Acomfortable bench, in a safe and interesting location,potentially affords one facet of living in the world ‘aswell as possible’ (Tronto 1998, 15). Within a context ofhealth inequalities and longstanding pressures on socialcare, sharply felt in ‘deprived’ locations such asWoolwich, we suggest that this relationship between‘self-building of moments of inclusion’ (Power andBartlett 2015, 12) and architectural practice may shapesome specificity into the means by which caring is‘designed into being’ (Bates et al. 2017, 97).

Bench-sitting is not sentimentally divorced fromnegotiations of equity and uneven belongings. In thispaper we have addressed the dynamics of interaction:not merely sitting but also watching, questioning,reading, friend-making, parenting. What does a focuson sitting still (or still-ish) add to understandings ofconviviality within a site shaped by corporate-ledregeneration, gentrification, marks of imperial historyand ongoing racisms? Conviviality should not beframed to be easy, but it may be broadly ‘at ease’ –specifically with difference (Wise and Velayutham2014, 167), and it is productive to probe deeper intothis notion of ease within urban outdoor environments.The observant viewfinder of the film rests on the seatedagainst a twitchy backdrop of passers-through. Yet thesquare is not merely a functional interchange but avalued place, due in most part to the acts of peoplestaying put. Conversations are longer (between thosesitting) or fleeting (seated to passers-by), nods andacknowledgements not necessarily needing a commonlanguage beyond the ability to ‘exchange a few wordsand smile’ (Sarita). Even those who perceive theirsitting as solitary loosely expect unexpected interactions‘because when you sit here people come up to you’(Maurice). Mostly these are ‘starting points’ (Mel)without longevity, but seemingly cumulative, ‘you get toknow lots of things around just by sitting here really’(Margaret). So Wilson and Darling’s proposal of ‘thecity as a site where strangers can mingle without thedesire for homogeneity or idealised notions of



community’ (2016, 3) is refined, sharpened here to amicro scale and the presence of people choosing to sitin relative proximity. Wilson (2016) argues thatencounter fundamentally has the potential to surprise,disrupt andmake a difference to people. By attending tothe voices of bench-sitters, we have articulated thisdifference through narratives of care, humour, com-panionship, irritation, peacefulness and belonging. Abench here functions not as a still point, but a mundanenexus of un-panicked multiculturalism (Noble 2009).

A paper about benches cannot be purely aboutsitting still. The communal context defies this, alwaysrequiring a return not only to the interaction betweenindividual bodies and ‘everyone else’, but also to themultiple temporalities and subjectivities of urbanpublics. Even as corporate developers seek high rent-payers to increase their profits in the longer term, fornow, during the early years of redevelopment, Wool-wich centre continues to be used by all, includingpeople who are likely to be pushed out later by thepincer movement of gentrification, spiralling housingcosts and benefit cuts (Peck et al. 2013; Watt andMinton 2016). As such, our findings have implicationsfor policy and public space practice (Bynon andRishbeth 2016). Public space design that facilitates amix of activities, comfortable for longer-stay users andaccommodating a flow for those ‘just pausing’, canprovide a broadly inclusive place within an urbanlocality. Choice of where to sit is important insupporting a personal agency, easing the mostlyunspoken practicalities and challenges of proximity tounknown others. We suggest that lived negotiations ofcare and conviviality are not only shaped by these‘material affordances of the built environment’ (Degenand Rose 2012, 3278) but importantly enable ‘counter-memories that challenge normative narratives’ (Wilsonand Darling 2016, 6). Temporal imprints of thesebecome part of the materiality of the square, noted bycontrasting the 2015 film stills with the publicity imagestaken immediately after the redesigned square’s com-pletion in 2011: worn grass, the mark of a beer can andthe scuff of a skateboard. The act of designing, the top-down architecture of care, is partial. The square isnever seen in the purity of the proposed masterplan butre-encountered, re-evaluated, re-purposed on each dayand on each visit, a co-production of place: designed,managed and inhabited.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks are due to all members of the projectteam for their creative, thoughtful and intellectualcontributions to The Bench Project, in particular toEsther Johnson, Samprada Mukhia and Jasber Singhfor their roles in fieldwork drawn on in this paper. Weare grateful to Helen Wilson for insightful comments

on an earlier draft, and to TIBG reviewers for theirconstructive feedback. This paper is based on researchfunded by the UK Arts and Humanities ResearchCouncil, grant reference AH/M006107/1.

Notes

1 For example, the population of Woolwich’s Riverside wardgrew by 50 per cent between 2001 and 2011 (Bates 2017,58).

2 All participants’ names are pseudonyms.3 ‘Not a dicky-bird’ is colloquial English and in this context

means having no possessions.

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